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14 July 2016
O
ne summer evening some moons ago, when we
were at Nya Gogra T.E., my husband and daughter
returned from the local market and handed me the
shopping bag, filled not with the products I had expected,
but this tiny brown ball of fur, who turned out to be an
adorable baby civet cat. They had rescued him from the
vegetable vendor’s basket after hearing him mewling
plaintively. Of course, palms had to be greased before he
was reluctantly handed over.
He was beautiful, this little being, with coal black eyes and
a small black nose in a pointed face, offset by a soft grey
furry body, and a tail as long as his body, which would be
curled protectively around him when he slept. Having had
some experience rearing another civet cat earlier, this time
around I was rather confident of looking after this little
one. Soon he was hungrily sucking milk from an ink-
dropper.Then with a full stomach, he warily looked around
and promptly disappeared under the bedroom closet.That
first night was a quiet one, with me checking on him time
and again, but letting him be, since he was still very scared.
The next few days passed by with us seeing him only at
mealtimes. Then one morning he woke me up with that
lovable ‘tick-tock-click’ language, the civet tongue I was
familiar with. He was sitting on the bed next to my ear and
chattering away, probably asking me to hurry up with his
breakfast! I knew then that I had won his trust and that
was the start of a beautiful relationship.
We christened him Pit-Pat, as his tiny feet would busily
patter around the bungalow as he explored his new
surroundings. However, our boisterous family of five
~Rupa Saikia
Boroi T.E.
World
Wild
It’s
a
Pit-Pat